A veteran director of feature episodes in the classic "Ultraman" tokusatsu (special effects) series, Kazuya Konaka may not be the most obvious choice for a drama about teen suicide, but a look at his filmography, including 1998's "Nazo no Tenkosei (The Dimension Travelers)" and 2008's "Tokyo Shojo (Tokyo Girl)," reveals a long-standing interest in seishun eiga (youth films) with a supernatural twist and serious bent.
His latest film, "Seki Seki Ren Ren (Deep Red Love)," began from a collaboration with novelist/scriptwriter Minato Shukawa on the "Ultraman Mebius" show, for which Shukawa wrote three scripts, of which Konaka directed two.
"That was about seven years ago — he was a fan of the tokusatsu genre," Konaka tells The Japan Times at a preview screening of his film in Tokyo. "After that I was offered a chance to make a film based on his novel," "Seki Seki Ren Ren," published in 2006.